I do not think I need to say a great deal about the importance of this chapter as concerning the resurrection. Next to the resurrection accounts as we find them in each of the four gospels, this chapter is of the greatest importance. What I have discovered to be quite interesting, however, as I have studied it, is that it deals with what we would consider a depressing subject as much or even more so than it deals with the glorious theme of the resurrection. I am talking about death, of course, and the two are connected because it is only as we understand the significance and the horror of death that we understand the importance and glory of the resurrection.
In 1 Corinthians 15 the words “death,” “died” or “die” occur twenty-five times. And then, of course, in addition to that there are the other words that are used to mean the same thing: corruption, sleep, departure. And then I went back and counted all the times the word “resurrection” or “raised” is used, and found that they occur twenty-four times, though there are also other words or phrases that suggest it.
I think you see the point I am getting at. Paul is writing this great chapter on the resurrection. He is writing a chapter to answer the very kinds of questions about it that were raised in the church at Corinth, but he finds himself unable to do so without talking about death for which resurrection is the answer. And so I want to talk about death and the conquest over death that is guaranteed by Christ’s resurrection. Death is a very serious subject. But the joy that is in this passage is that death is conquered. “O death where is thy victory?” That is the question of the passage. And the affirmation is, “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Let me begin with the first of the affirmations we must make, and that is that death is an enemy. That is said here earlier in the chapter in very clear language. You find it in verse 26: “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” Now, it is important to say that because we have in some forms of Christianity a kind of false optimism that denies the reality of the great evils that we know in this world—sin, suffering and death. There is a perversion of Christianity that is not Christianity at all, which goes by the name of Christian Science, that carries this to a far extreme.
But we must say if we are perfectly honest that the tendency is often there within true Christian circles as well. We see it, for instance, when we come into contact with a person who is dying. I was reading, some time ago, the story of a Christian who was in the last stages of cancer, and who described for the benefit of her Christian friends what happened. She said, “The people come into my room and I can see them when they come because there is a mirror in the hall and they are reflected there as they come by. And I can see that they try to put on a pleasant expression. And they come into the room and they talk about what is going to be taking place at church next week and the week after. They speak of the time when I am going to be better and be with them. But they know that’s not true. They know I’m dying. But they don’t want to talk about it. And so they put on a pleasant face, and pretend that the evil isn’t there.”
Now in the case of this person whose testimony I was reading, there was in addition to the awareness of the evil a triumphant faith in Jesus who rose from the dead and who has promised—indeed, given—eternal life to all who believe in Him. So the death in that room was transformed. But that is not always so. What we have sometimes in Christianity is a denial of the fact that death is an enemy.
